The Myth of Turkish Secularism

Turkey is a secular state. So claim its government and nearly all mainstream Western media. They are mistaken.

In civilized, democratic countries, secularism means not only a respectful separation between church and state but also freedom of religion. As we shall demonstrate, Turkish policies have long been the antithesis of secularism.

The Turkish government massively supports and funds Islam – specifically Sunni Islam – inside the country. Turkey simultaneously represses religions such as Alevism, and bullies and persecutes indigenous Christians, most of whom it liquidated in 20th century genocides. Moreover, it uses Islam to project Turkish political power into Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. Turkey’s system is more properly termed State Islam.

This article is not a criticism of Islam or its faithful. We respect both. Turkey’s secularism myth, nevertheless, cries out to be laid bare.

State Islam

The Directorate of Religious Affairs – known as the Diyanet – is the government body that represents and directs all of Sunni Islam in Turkey. Created in 1924, a year after the Republic of Turkey was formed, the Diyanet is enshrined in Article 136 of the Turkish Constitution. The Diyanet is huge and powerful. Operating under the Prime Minister, it employs about 100,000. All Sunni clergy are salaried civil servants of the Diyanet.

The Diyanet’s $2 billion annual outlay exceeds the combined budgets of Turkey’s Foreign, Energy, and Environmental Ministries. By law a political party can be dissolved if it dares to advocate the Diyanet’s abolition.

Until recently, the Diyanet wrote all the sermons for its clergy, but reportedly now sometimes allows them to write their own, though their contents are controlled.

Would the U.S. – or any democratic Western country – be termed “secular” if it funded a huge Christian government agency that employed all Christian clergy and controlled their sermons? Obviously not.

Who owns Turkey’s 80,000 mosques? It’s not always clear. Even many Turks wonder. For sure, however, the Diyanet controls all mosques. (Shiite Muslims represent only about 3% of Turkey’s 80 million people and are largely independent of the Diyanet.)

Two large mosques to be built on Istanbul’s Camlica Hill and Taksim Square are personal projects of Prime Minister Erdogan. The government is apparently paying most of the costs, not something a secular state would do.

The Diyanet operates not only in Turkey but worldwide. Turkish foreign policy and the Diyanet are intertwined. The latter promotes the country’s political influence abroad.

Worldwide Reach

The Diyanet has a Foreign Affairs department that sends religious consultants not only into Muslim countries, such as those in Central Asia and Africa, but also into the United States, France, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, and other European countries.

Indeed, some Turkish embassies and consulates have a religious affairs department and attachés that work with local Diyanet representatives. Turkey is very active, for instance, in the Netherlands where it reportedly pays the salaries of the Diyanet-affiliated Dutch Islamic Foundation’s staff.

In partnership with Turkey’s Religious Foundation, the Diyanet has in the last two decades constructed or renovated mosques in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia, northern Cyprus, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and elsewhere.

No truly secular state would do these things. Nor would it persecute persons of other religions.

Religious Repression

Last year the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), established by Congress, placed Turkey in its worst category, a “Country of Particular Concern,” alongside Burma, China, Pakistan, and a dozen others.

Restrictions that “deny non-Muslim communities the rights to train clergy, offer religious education, and own and maintain places of worship, have led to their decline, and in some cases their virtual disappearance.”

The persecution of non-Muslims continued even after the Turkish Republic came about in 1923. The infamous Capital Tax (Varlik Vergisi) program during WW II, as but one example, deliberately taxed Christians and Jews at extortionate rates that often exceeded their income. Men were sent to labor camps in the interior when unable to pay. Families were bankrupted. Only an international outcry stopped the program.

Thousands of Christian churches, schools, hospitals, orphanages, cemeteries, and other community properties have been continually seized by Turkey in the past several decades.

Though Turkey has recently returned some of these properties under international pressure, the vast majority has not been, and probably will not be, returned.

Countless ancient Armenian churches and monasteries, such as Saint Mark’s (Nshan) in Sivas, have been deliberately destroyed, sometimes with explosives. Others serve as stables. Earlier this year in the cities of Iznik and Trabzon, old Greek churches were converted to mosques.

Alevism is a religion that has some 10 to 20 million adherents in Turkey. Complex and somewhat mysterious, it contains elements of Shia Islam, Sufism, paganism, and other spiritual and religious traditions. Alevis worship in houses called cemevis, not mosques. Alevis and cemevis are not recognized by the Turkish government. Alevis complain bitterly, to little avail.

Alevis have long been the victims of discrimination and even violent attacks, such as inSivas in 1993 when 35 leading Alevis were murdered by mobs, and most recently this year in Ankara, when police fired tear-gas at protesting Alevis.

“Turkey may look like a secular state on paper,” says Izzettin Dogan, a leading Alevi, “but in terms of international law it is actually a Sunni Islamic state.” He is correct, but most of the outside world is oblivious to voices such as his.

True Secularism

Some Turks feel that their country is secular because the Diyanet’s hegemony moderates Islam against extremist tendencies. There may be some truth to that.

But as secularism must include a respectful distance between religion and state, Turkey would still not qualify. Along with Turkey’s domestic religious repression, and employing the Diyanet in foreign policy, the claim of secularism is simply fallacious.

If Turkey is ever to be secular, it must allow the free exercise of all religions – including Islam – and guarantee the rights of the faithful to be free from harassment and compulsion. The Turkish government’s acknowledgement of its past and present wrongs, especially to the non-Turkish and non-Muslim communities, and making genuine amends, must be part of this process.

Until then – particularly in the West – mainstream media, governments, religious leaders, academicians, and political analysts should cease swallowing Turkey’s fraudulent claim of secularism.

Following the installation of the misleading Turkish monument in Ottawa last August, the Turkish Embassy of Canada is now planning to erect a monument at the Brantford Mount Hope Veterans' Cemetery (Ontario) in memory of the "Turkish" internees who were sent from Brantford to northern Ontario during WWI.

Although the internees were Alevis and Kurds, and the single Turk buried at the cemetery died two years before the start of the war, the Turkish embassy is willfully manipulating the evidence and is depicting the internees as Turks. According to reports, TVO television network, which is owned by the province of Ontario, is planning a documentary about the "Turkish" internees and the phoney monument at the Brantford cemetery.

The Turkish embassy is deliberately politicizing the internees' incident to force the Canadian government to apologize for interning "Turks". It is also intruding into Canadian domestic affairs by installing an Ankara-envisioned monument in a Canadian cemetery. The underhanded Turkish strategy is to use the hoped-for Canadian apology to neutralize the Canadian government's condemnation of the Genocide of the Armenians by Turkey, especially in light of the upcoming centenary of the Genocide.

We condemn the Turkish ambassador's interference into Canadian domestic affairs, its attempt to blackmail our government, and exploitation of the memory of the non-Turkish internees for Ankara's propaganda purposes. We also call for the CANCELLATION of the fake monument's construction, and censure the Turkish government and its representatives in Canada.